Question

During your first job as an ecologist you are assigned to study a rare plant species. You measure the species population density in fifteen 10 m2 quadrats randomly located within a large population and count 50, 6, 12, 44, 0, 67, 9, 15, 27, 33, 0, 51, 77, 0, and 5 plants per quadrat. Using only these data you amaze your colleagues by quickly concluding that this rare plant is likely quite sensitive to the spatial location of resources or other habitat components within its geographic range. How do these data support that conclusion?

Answer 1

Mean is calculated by adding all the data and dividing the sum by number of data. Standard deviation is calculated by the formula square root of summation of (x -x')^2 divided by n

The given data set has the mean of 26.47 and standard deviation of 24.88. Also the range of the data is 77. The data therefore shows very wide dispersion.

So, we can conclude that the rare plant is quote sensitive to the spatial location of resources or other habitat components within its geographic range.